28 October 2010: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) released a report titled “Climate-Smart Agriculture: Policies, Practices and Financing for Food Security, Adaptation and Mitigation.”

It underscores that agriculture in developing countries must undergo a significant transformation to meet the challenges of food security and climate change. It describes climate-smart agriculture as an approach that sustainably increases productivity, resilience, reduces/removes greenhouse gases (GHGs), and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals. The report stresses that: effective climate-smart practices exist and could be implemented; adopting an ecosystem approach and ensuring intersectoral cooperation is crucial for climate change response; and investment is required to fill knowledge gaps, develop technologies and methodologies, and conserve and produce suitable varieties and breeds of crops.

On institutional and policy options, the report underscores the need for: institutional and financial support for smallholders to transition to climate-smart agriculture; strengthened institutional capacity to improve dissemination of information and coordination of farmers; and greater consistency among agriculture, food security and climate change policy-making at all levels. On financing, the report notes that current and projected available financing are insignificant to meet the climate change and food security challenges. It highlights the need for innovative options to meet investment requirements of the agriculture sector through synergistically combining financing from public and private sources, and the need for financing mechanisms to take sector-specific considerations into account.

The report was prepared as technical input for the Hague Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change, scheduled to take place from 31 October-5 November 2010, in The Hague, the Netherlands. [FAO Report on Climate Smart Agriculture] [IISD RS coverage of the Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change]